Legal Advice

Welcome to the Legal Advice Office in South Africa

The Legal Advice Office offers affordable Legal Advice as well as Legal and Paralegal Services throughout South Africa.

Our legal advice and services are based on 40 years of experience in the professional legal field. As a purely internet based legal consultancy business, we pride ourselves in personal, professional and efficient service at affordable rates and undertake to revert to our clients within 48 hours of their query being received by us.

The ownership of our own home is a dream which all of us have; but not all of us will realise; and when the opportunity to own your own home knocks; do your homework! Get advice and in that way you will not make any mistakes.A recent unreported case of Hlabane and Another versus Sebotsa and Others is a lesson to be learned.

Today; to finalise this set of blogs on the above topic; we look at the last two subsections of section 14 dealing with the expiry and renewal of fixed term contracts and once again we will concentrate on leases as this is the most frequent source of enquiry; although the provisions of the whole of section 14 apply to ALL fixed term contracts.

Landlords and their agents often refer to an early cancellation of a lease agreement by the tenant as “a breach of contract.” This is not the case.

Here is a recent query that was received by The Legal Advice Office last week:

“Hi, Hugh. My company is the tenant in a Commercial Property in Centurion. We were led to believe by the landlord’s agent that the foot traffic in our new Mall would be considerable, but this is simply not the case. The Mall parking is incomplete as is the final building completion and promises made to us at the time of the negotiations with the agents for the lease have simply not materialised. We feel that we were misled into signing this lease for 5 years and still have 4 years and six months to run and are simply not able to keep afloat as we have run at a loss for the last 6 months. Is there any advice you can give us to assist us in terminating this lease?”

A commercial partnership a separate legal entity from marriage and partners could share in the profits which would accrue to their separate estates just as it would if they were normal business partners.

“My husband and I are married out of community of property and without the accrual system in terms of SA Law. For the last ten years, we have both worked together in our family business. Due to health reasons, my involvement in the business is becoming less and less. Our marriage is also going through difficult times, and I am concerned that should we end up getting divorced that I would not be entitled to any share in the future profits of the business which we have built up together.”

Landlords often refer to an early cancellation of a lease agreement by the tenant as “a breach of contract.” This is not the case.

At The Legal Advice Office, we receive emails every single week from tenants who want to inquire about the possibility of terminating their lease agreements.

There are many reasons for this. Some are purely financial reasons, some because their businesses are not viable, sometimes it is because they want to relocate either from one city or town to another or simply to change the venue for their business.

In other case, it is because they were misled by the landlord or the agent at the time of entering the lease eg with regard to a misrepresentation as to the amount of anticipated foot traffic for their particular centre.

If you have valid grounds a lease agreement may be terminated and cancelled in terms of the common law.

Business rescue is simply a legal process to assist businesses that are in financial distress

From time to time we get inquiries from business owners whose businesses are struggling financially and who seek advice regarding their options. One of those options is Business Rescue; which is a relatively new commercial concept.

This blog focuses on shedding a little more light on the very complex and technical issue of business rescue and the new Companies Act, which is Act No 71 of 2008; and we are going to focus on Chapter 6 dealing with Business Rescue.

We hope to answer the following question for entrepreneurs and business owners in general: